“Are you close to your parents?”
He was bent over the dishwasher, and I saw his body tense at that question. Surprising me, he glanced up and said, “I never knew my father. My mother died when I was twenty-one. She and I were never close.”
I’d figured he wouldn’t be close to them if they treated him like that as a seven-year-old, but I always held out hope that people could change. Mostly, though, they didn’t.
“I love that you’ve chosen to parent your daughter differently.”
He straightened, his body still tense. By the look on his face, I decided I must have said something wrong. “Charlie’s only just come back into my life. My fault, not her mother’s. But yeah, I would never raise a child the way I was raised.”
I frowned. “You haven’t had anything to do with her until now?”
“I was there for the first two years of her life. Shit got in the way of that until just recently.” He watched me closely. It felt like he was trying to judge my reaction.
I stood and walked to him. “Something you need to know about me, Hyde, is that if you’re in my life, I don’t judge you.”
His eyes searched mine for a beat and then he nodded. “Good. I judge myself enough for everyone.”
I knew he was being honest with me. It was right there in his body language and his voice. I realised then just how much Hyde carried his pain with him, and I wondered what he’d been through in life to cause that anguish. I hoped in time he would share it with me so I could help him through it.
He kissed me before smacking my ass—something he seemed to like to do—and saying, “Yesterday you told Fox you were excited about some plans but not sure you could pull them off. What plans are these?”
Figuring that changing the subject was his way of dealing with whatever he had going on, I ran with it instead of forcing him to talk about something he didn’t want to. “I want to convert some of the space in my shop so I can add another room and bring in someone to do waxing. There’s a dress shop a few doors down from me that is flat out, so I figure between the women I have coming in and her customers, there’re enough women to target for waxing. But, I don’t really have the cash to pay someone to do the work, so I’m gonna have to get creative to make it happen. Fox had some ideas. Now I just have to go through them and see what I can do.”
Someone knocked on my front door just as I finished telling him about my plans. When Savannah called out my name, I said, “Shit, I forgot she was coming over.” She was here to tell me all about her big date the previous night.
“That’s your sister?”
“Yeah. Sorry, but we already had plans to go out for lunch today.”
“Let her in. I’ll grab my stuff and get out of here.”
I gripped his shirt as he turned to go into the bedroom. “We need to discuss you taking me on a date.”
“As in out to dinner?”
Honestly, the man had no idea. It had clearly been too long since he’d dated a woman. And it was clearly my responsibility to teach him what he needed to do. “Yeah, as in out to dinner. If I’m gonna do this with you, you’re gonna have to earn it.”
Those lips of his twitched again. I seemed to amuse him a lot. “Noted. I’ll pick you up for dinner tomorrow night.”
I was free tomorrow night, but there was no way I was allowing him to dictate terms to me. I liked to start a relationship the way I intended it to go on. Him always making the decisions was not the way I saw our relationship going.
Shaking my head, I said, “Tomorrow’s no good for me. How about Tuesday night?”
Full points to him for not even blinking an eye. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”
I smiled and pulled his face down for a kiss, ignoring the fact my sister’s knocking had grown louder. “I can’t wait to see where you take me.” The first date was everything in my opinion. It set the course for the future. I had high hopes of Hyde rocking my world on a date, just as much as he did in bed.
Chapter 24
Hyde
“I’m just saying I think it might be wise to choose our battles,” I said to Tenille late Tuesday afternoon. We were discussing Charlie and the fact Tenille felt like she was out of control.
“So you’re the expert now, are you? A week or so of parenting and you know everything?” We’d been going over this for a good half hour, and I didn’t see the end in sight.
I raked my fingers through my hair. “No, but I’m not a fucking idiot, Tee. I’ve been watching you two fight and listening to what she’s saying about it all, and I think that you fighting every damn battle is just pushing her further away.”
“Oh, so you think I should just let her smoke and drink and give me attitude, do you? Not to mention cutting class and letting her grades slip.” I saw where Charlie got her attitude. It rolled off Tenille in waves.
“I’m suggesting you work on a couple of those things at a time. Pick the most important one, say her grades, and go to war with her about that. The rest, tread carefully. Have you seen her smoking or drinking since you got here?”
“No.”
I nodded. “She and I had a talk about it. I told her not to do it in the house. I figure I can’t control what goes on outside the house, so why fight her on it?”
“You’re delusional, Aiden, if you think that by simply telling her not to do it here will stop her.”
“I know it won’t stop her doing it. But I’m hoping that by not alienating her completely, I’m keeping the communication going between us. And that by giving her some room to figure shit out on her own, she will come to respect me and want to show me she can make better choices.”
My phone buzzed with a text. My dick stirred at the thought of it being from Monroe. We’d been exchanging dirty messages all day.
Monroe: You know how I didn’t want dick the other day?
Me: Yeah.
Monroe: I’m over that. Just so you know.
Me: Thank fuck.
Monroe: I want it every way I can have it tonight.
Me: Ass?
Monroe: Steady on, tiger. A man’s gotta prove himself first.
Tenille cut in, “Are you just going to ignore me now? Your woman’s got all your attention, has she?” She spat her words out like they tasted awful. I imagined they did, and I hated that I’d caused her to feel this way. I needed to fix whatever issue we had here.
“Tee,” I started, but the sound of glass smashing outside distracted me. Placing my phone down on the counter, I said, “Hold that thought. I’ll be back.”
Jogging outside, I discovered that some kids were playing ball on the road and had smashed one of my neighbour’s windows. He was already outside dealing with it, and waved me off, letting me know he had it under control.
By the time I got back inside, Tenille had my phone in her hands and had scrolled my messages with Monroe. She looked at me with a level of hurt I’d never seen coming. “I thought you didn’t really know Monroe.”